The present invention generally relates to cooking equipment and more particularly relates to roller grills for cooking and heating food items.
Roller grill assemblies typically use an array of heatable tubes that are rotatably mounted within a grill housing. In operation, food items are placed upon the roller tubes and the roller tubes are rotated as heat is transferred to the food items. Unfortunately, conventional roller grills are frequently unable to effectively rotate food items having uneven or rough outer surfaces such as items having a bread-like outer layer or crust surrounding a filling, e.g. an egg roll or corn dog.
There have been some minor advances in roller grill assembly technology directed to effectively rotating food items. For example, referring to FIG. 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,634, a roller grill includes a roller 20 having a grid of wires 30 affixed to the roller. The grid is preferably disposed in contact with the surface of the roller 20 to facilitate heat transfer from the roller to food articles in contact with the roller. The grid attachment enhances the ability of the roller to both rotate and uniformly heat articles of food. The grid attachment, however, is difficult to clean, which may discourage proper cleaning of the system. This may result is unsanitary conditions.
In spite of the above advances, there remains a need for a roller grill having rollers that effectively rotate food items, particularly food items having an uneven or rough outer surface. There also remains a need for roller grills that are easy to clean.